Latest / Pit Talk / Will McLaren's howler really cost them the drivers title? Las Vegas GP Review

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Will McLaren's howler really cost them the drivers title? Las Vegas GP Review · Pit Talk

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannons.
0:03
Speaker 1: On today's episode, Max Verstappen is just twenty four points
0:07
Speaker 1: off the championship lead after winning the Las Vegas Grand
0:10
Speaker 1: Prix on a night both McLaren drivers are sensationally disqualified,
0:15
Speaker 1: shaking up the title battle, and good Christian Horner find
0:19
Speaker 1: his way back into Formula One as early as next season.
0:23
Speaker 1: My name is Michael Lamonato. It's great to have your
0:26
Speaker 1: company and the company of my co host. He's a
0:29
Speaker 1: big fan of the Mitsutoyo micrometer. It's Matt Clayson.
0:34
Speaker 2: Who is it? Michael border the point?
0:36
Speaker 3: But see now, the reason I thought this podcast was
0:39
Speaker 3: a little delayed this week is I figured that you'd
0:41
Speaker 3: been out at the Dance Lounge. The Sky Sports comicery
0:46
Speaker 3: decided to refer to it over the course of the weekend,
0:48
Speaker 3: the dance Lounge. Has anyone ever been to such a thing?
0:51
Speaker 2: Firstly?
0:52
Speaker 3: And also why did it need to be mentioned seventy
0:55
Speaker 3: five times in the broadcast? Wasn't the only thing we'll
0:57
Speaker 3: get to in the broadcast? But yes, bit of late
1:00
Speaker 3: season championship intrigue, and you and I have discussed the
1:04
Speaker 3: use of the Hollywood safety Car from time to time,
1:06
Speaker 3: but when it comes to plank where you're either in
1:09
Speaker 3: or you're out and McLaren, we're out. And now we
1:11
Speaker 3: have a very very different next two races, don't.
1:13
Speaker 1: We Yes, nothing Hollywood about plank where That's.
1:17
Speaker 3: The big takeaway from these podcast people.
1:20
Speaker 1: Absolutely, undoubtedly you've seen the news, not only at the
1:23
Speaker 1: Fox Sports website but everywhere. I got a breaking news
1:26
Speaker 1: notification from the ABC app over the course of the weekend.
1:29
Speaker 1: Losco Piastre and in brackets Lanta Norris have also been
1:32
Speaker 1: disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Let me give
1:36
Speaker 1: you the measurements for anyone who's been wondering about it.
1:38
Speaker 1: Piastre's plank at the three points at which they measure
1:42
Speaker 1: it was zero point zero four millimeters, zero point two
1:46
Speaker 1: six millimeters and zero point one millimeters too thin. And
1:50
Speaker 1: Lando Norris's zero point one two and zero point zero
1:54
Speaker 1: seven millimeters too thin. I did like it. I unashamedly
1:59
Speaker 1: rip this directly from ESPN's Lawrence Edmondson that if Norris
2:02
Speaker 1: loses the title by eighteen points or less, he will
2:06
Speaker 1: be able to say he lost the title by literally
2:08
Speaker 1: the width of a human hair, which is I think.
2:13
Speaker 3: But the key words you just said then, like the measurements,
2:16
Speaker 3: I enjoyed you reading them all and they are very
2:18
Speaker 3: very small, but the key to words in those sentences
2:21
Speaker 3: were too thin. And it's one of those rules that
2:24
Speaker 3: you're you know you're you can't be half pregnant, as
2:26
Speaker 3: the saying goes Michael, but you know you're either in
2:29
Speaker 3: or you're out with this, and we've seen examples of
2:31
Speaker 3: this through I mean even as recently as this year
2:33
Speaker 3: Lewis Hamilton in China, wasn't it back right at the
2:36
Speaker 3: start two thousand races ago? Is one of those rules
2:39
Speaker 3: that there is no gray area with this. You've either
2:41
Speaker 3: you're either in brich or you're not. And the McLaren's
2:43
Speaker 3: were The curious part about this was that normally it's
2:48
Speaker 3: a very very quick decision, and we know that someone's
2:51
Speaker 3: being investigated for this and you know it's coming. It's
2:53
Speaker 3: a bit like when they penalized Jumpstart at the start
2:55
Speaker 3: of race, like you know that someone's just banged to
2:57
Speaker 3: rights here. The curious part for me was this seemed
3:00
Speaker 3: to take rather a long time to get to this conclusion.
3:04
Speaker 3: On Sunday night, Australian time and the best part about
3:07
Speaker 3: all of this for Australian audiences, or particularly Australian journalists
3:10
Speaker 3: working on this, was that it was not happening at
3:12
Speaker 3: four o'clock in the morning, so it happened in a
3:14
Speaker 3: sensible time zone. But the curiosity for me is why
3:17
Speaker 3: did it take so long?
3:18
Speaker 1: Yes, I did enjoy just as a side note, the
3:20
Speaker 1: number of people complaining in the UK and fantastic group
3:23
Speaker 1: about the time the race was on. One race in
3:27
Speaker 1: a bad time zone.
3:28
Speaker 2: You sympathy for me at all.
3:30
Speaker 1: Teaspoon of concrete ladies and gentlemen. But this is it was.
3:34
Speaker 1: It was interesting that it took so long because, as
3:36
Speaker 1: you say, normally is and I think I went back
3:37
Speaker 1: and looked at Lewis Hamilton's disqualification in China, it was
3:40
Speaker 1: less than an hour from start to finish, because as
3:43
Speaker 1: you say, it's you know you're out. But McLaren did
3:45
Speaker 1: argue hard, and you look, it's their right to argue
3:48
Speaker 1: hard against double disqualification. That I think it's fair to
3:51
Speaker 1: say it's pretty embarrassing. And these were their arguments. One
3:55
Speaker 1: was that there was additional and unexpected porpoising or some
3:58
Speaker 1: still say, poor poison that did damage to the plank
4:02
Speaker 1: of the car. That's when the car is bouncing up
4:03
Speaker 1: and down to the arenamics. The second was that there
4:07
Speaker 1: didn't have as much practice time this weekend because first
4:10
Speaker 1: practice was running in pretty atrociously grim and dirty conditions.
4:15
Speaker 1: Just look back at the footage and see the dirt
4:16
Speaker 1: that's been split up by the cars on the public roads.
4:19
Speaker 1: And then there were the red flags in practice two,
4:20
Speaker 1: and then it was wet in practice three, and then
4:23
Speaker 1: this was I mean, really scraping the bottom of the
4:26
Speaker 1: barrel here if they weren't already. But that this breach
4:28
Speaker 1: was not as big as some others, which is just
4:31
Speaker 1: not a strong argument in my opinion. But then none
4:33
Speaker 1: of them were because and this is another great f
4:36
Speaker 1: one line, all these things were the same for everybody.
4:38
Speaker 1: They didn't have the practice time, the track conditions were
4:41
Speaker 1: the same for everybody, but everybody's plank where that was
4:45
Speaker 1: checked was within the limit supplyble the one millimeter limit
4:50
Speaker 1: of where you're allowed before you undersqualified. So I think
4:52
Speaker 1: McClaren will have known arguing it. But it was then
4:54
Speaker 1: interesting from what I've read. I don't know this for certain,
4:57
Speaker 1: but that those arguments lasted about an hour. Still another
5:00
Speaker 1: two and a half hours or so before the steward
5:02
Speaker 1: wrote what we all knew, which was these do not
5:05
Speaker 1: matter and the cars are disqualified. But it's interesting that
5:09
Speaker 1: what's interesting in a couple of different ways. One is
5:12
Speaker 1: that McLaren gets caught out by this now when there
5:15
Speaker 1: seemed like there was nothing on the line, and yet
5:17
Speaker 1: now so much on the line to make a mistake
5:20
Speaker 1: in aggressively setting up the car this way. But as
5:23
Speaker 1: we were talking about before the podcast, Matt that actually
5:26
Speaker 1: perhaps McLaren has been, according to some reports sailing fairly
5:29
Speaker 1: close to the wind on plank were and what that
5:32
Speaker 1: might suggest about the competitive order as we head into
5:35
Speaker 1: suddenly more high stakes final two rounds of the season.
5:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does sound like they were quite close in
5:40
Speaker 3: Brazil the previous race weekend. But the word that I've
5:45
Speaker 3: used many times on this podcast over the past couple
5:47
Speaker 3: of months when it comes to a stapen in Red.
5:49
Speaker 2: Bull is footsteps.
5:51
Speaker 3: And it feels to me that McLaren a may bee
5:53
Speaker 3: pushing things to the absolute limit here because of the
5:57
Speaker 3: increasingly loud footsteps behind them. When you've got a proven
6:00
Speaker 3: four time world champion with pretty much nothing to lose.
6:03
Speaker 3: That's coming from this far back. But it's clearly in
6:05
Speaker 3: the best form of any driver in the field over
6:07
Speaker 3: the past seven or eight rounds, and perhaps that tempt
6:11
Speaker 3: you to perhaps push things a little bit more closely
6:13
Speaker 3: to the edge. All of the things that McLaren argue
6:15
Speaker 3: that you just detailed there before were completely correct in
6:18
Speaker 3: that the track was a mess on Friday, and then
6:21
Speaker 3: we had manhole covers coming up again, and then the weather.
6:24
Speaker 3: The weather on Saturday was just about as sketchy as
6:27
Speaker 3: we've seen Formula One cars go around in any sort
6:31
Speaker 3: of conditions for a long time. We were laughing before qualifying,
6:33
Speaker 3: thinking what's the over under here for red flags will
6:35
Speaker 3: be like five at the first part of Q white
6:37
Speaker 3: or something. Incredibly we managed to get through it without
6:39
Speaker 3: the red flags, but that was really really sketchy street track.
6:43
Speaker 3: It's quite dark for a street track, I find, and
6:46
Speaker 3: you know, you look at Singapore or the races in
6:49
Speaker 3: the Middle East that are lit up like the middle
6:50
Speaker 3: of the day. There's bits of this Las Vegas track
6:53
Speaker 3: into the back straight's the one I always think of.
6:54
Speaker 3: It just looks a bit dark and so visibility was
6:58
Speaker 3: surely an issue there, but obviously the show must go on.
7:00
Speaker 3: But yeah, that word footsteps to me is that McLaren,
7:03
Speaker 3: I like, there's an element of residual pressure here that's
7:06
Speaker 3: built up and perhaps that's why you sail a little
7:09
Speaker 3: bit close to the edge, and yes, the width of
7:11
Speaker 3: a human here and all of that, but it does
7:14
Speaker 3: reset the standings quite beautifully. Coming up for Katar with
7:18
Speaker 3: a sprint race. Let's not forget an Abu Dhabi coming up,
7:21
Speaker 3: because it's still improbable that Lando Norris loses this World championship,
7:26
Speaker 3: but it's far less impossible than it was, and you know,
7:31
Speaker 3: it's not your Hollywood safety car. Or let's just rewrite
7:34
Speaker 3: the last two laps of the twenty twenty one Abu
7:36
Speaker 3: Dhabi Grand Prix. Sorry if that's truegery for you, but
7:39
Speaker 3: it has set things up really, really nicely because Max
7:42
Speaker 3: Bastapan is now mathematically closer than he's been since I
7:45
Speaker 3: think what the Spanish Grand Prix, which was May or something.
7:48
Speaker 1: Yes, that would be about right now. Perhap my spreadsheet
7:50
Speaker 1: up ready to tell you exactly what it was, and
7:52
Speaker 1: it's I was too slow, apologies, but that sounds about ready,
7:56
Speaker 1: you know, what I there, it is, it is, it's
7:57
Speaker 1: since the it is you're right, crand Prix since before
8:01
Speaker 1: the Spanish Grand Prix, obviously, where I wonder how much
8:03
Speaker 1: he thinks in his darker moments, what if I hadn't
8:06
Speaker 1: fashed him to George Russell and had those seventeen points
8:08
Speaker 1: still in my pocket, then we'd be talking about quite
8:11
Speaker 1: a different finale here. But you're right, because it is
8:14
Speaker 1: important to say in in you know, the sensation of
8:16
Speaker 1: this double disqualification so late in the season that suddenly
8:20
Speaker 1: puts some stakes back into this battle. Lando Norris still
8:23
Speaker 1: remains pretty heavily. I think it's fair to say the
8:25
Speaker 1: title favorite with the twenty four point lead, needs to
8:28
Speaker 1: outscore the Stapp and piastre B only a couple of
8:31
Speaker 1: points in the next weekend to seal the title and
8:33
Speaker 1: kuta as he still can do. But it is a
8:35
Speaker 1: different proposition compared to what he had to do before
8:38
Speaker 1: the disqualification, which was just not lose too many points.
8:41
Speaker 1: He was sort of de facto over the line as
8:44
Speaker 1: long as he didn't have a terrible day end. I'm
8:47
Speaker 1: not going to say champion elected cast as much course
8:50
Speaker 1: the weekend qualifications somewhat embarrassing. He has to go out
8:54
Speaker 1: and still get it. And as you said, Vstapa, I
8:57
Speaker 1: think he's still the fore man of the competition. While
8:59
Speaker 1: Landon Norris is he in good form of Vestapans had
9:02
Speaker 1: more wins, more podiums in this half of the season
9:04
Speaker 1: than any other driver that includes Lando Norris, and he
9:07
Speaker 1: has nothing to lose. In fact, it's the second time
9:09
Speaker 1: before this weekend that he wrote off his championship. Must
9:12
Speaker 1: now be thinking, oh, second shot at this or third
9:14
Speaker 1: shot of this. That's very exciting. The jeopardy is really interesting.
9:18
Speaker 1: And when we talk about those twenty four points, I
9:20
Speaker 1: just do want to go back to the previous two
9:23
Speaker 1: sprints we've had, which both were significant for Oscar Piastri's
9:26
Speaker 1: then title lead. In the Austin Sprint, he was outscored
9:30
Speaker 1: by twenty three points by Verstapan in one weekend, and
9:33
Speaker 1: in the South Paolo Sprint it was also exactly the
9:36
Speaker 1: same twenty three points by Lando Norris in one weekend.
9:40
Speaker 1: This shows the power of the sprint. You know, if
9:41
Speaker 1: you've formed a one scheduling chief, whoever that is, you
9:45
Speaker 1: must going wow, what a great idea to put this
9:47
Speaker 1: sprint in Kata, because if we get another twenty three
9:49
Speaker 1: point swing against the title leader, that will give us
9:54
Speaker 1: the showdown in Abu Dhabi that everyone wants. The zero
9:58
Speaker 1: to one point difference between It's not out of the
10:01
Speaker 1: realms of possibility, because it's happened twice already in the
10:03
Speaker 1: last two months.
10:04
Speaker 3: No, I mean, what a great idea to have a
10:06
Speaker 3: spridget Abu Dhabi. That's the first time that sentence has
10:08
Speaker 3: ever been said ever in the history of record and.
10:11
Speaker 2: Mankind by you. But I have prepared.
10:14
Speaker 3: I know you're a man who has far better spreadsheets
10:16
Speaker 3: and pretty much anyone in Formula one is certainly me.
10:18
Speaker 3: But just for the sake of the listeners here, I
10:20
Speaker 3: know you already know this. So since Piastre's Dutch Grand
10:23
Speaker 3: Prix win, so we're going back to past seven rounds.
10:25
Speaker 3: Here it's for Stappen one hundred and sixty one points,
10:29
Speaker 3: Norris one hundred and fifteen points, Piastre fifty seven points,
10:33
Speaker 3: or if you like, it's for Stapphen one sixty one.
10:35
Speaker 3: McLaren won sixty two over seven round so it's one
10:40
Speaker 3: point difference between both McLaren drivers combined and max Verstappan
10:43
Speaker 3: just want to have a little hattip for Yuki Sonoda.
10:45
Speaker 3: Here it's red Bull one seventy seven, McLaren one sixty
10:48
Speaker 3: two over these seven rounds. So who says that Yuki
10:50
Speaker 3: Sonoda is not making a contribution. It's still less than
10:52
Speaker 3: ten percent, but he's still making a contribution. But here's
10:55
Speaker 3: the thing for me, right, So Piastre has one podium
10:59
Speaker 3: in the past seven rounds and that was third in
11:02
Speaker 3: Italy after he was asked to acquiest teammatee after a
11:05
Speaker 3: poor pit stop. And for Stapfan is outscored Norris by
11:08
Speaker 3: I think the six point seven points a round since
11:10
Speaker 3: the Dutch GP. So it does show you the height
11:13
Speaker 3: of the task. He still needs to scale to be
11:16
Speaker 3: able to tip this championship in his favor. But that
11:18
Speaker 3: you just mentioned then about the sprints and how seismic
11:21
Speaker 3: these turnarounds have been in Austin and at Interlagos, that
11:25
Speaker 3: does crack the door open. That's slight little bit more
11:29
Speaker 3: and yeah becomes more. It's statistically improbable, but it's certainly
11:33
Speaker 3: not impossible.
11:34
Speaker 1: As I said before, No, and I mean when you
11:36
Speaker 1: book at the form guide and this is something well,
11:38
Speaker 1: we have no other later chance to look at it
11:40
Speaker 1: because by next week the race finished. But yeah, the
11:42
Speaker 1: most successful driving cut out is Max with Staffan. Yes,
11:45
Speaker 1: the most successful driver in Abu Dhabi was Lewis Hamilton,
11:48
Speaker 1: and then it's Max with Staffen. For Staffan won the
11:51
Speaker 1: Grand Prix last year. Okay, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
11:55
Speaker 1: It both kind of won the sprint. Norris was leading
11:57
Speaker 1: it and gave it to to Piastre yea and in
12:00
Speaker 1: Nabu Dhabi Norris one, but that's only after Piastre was
12:02
Speaker 1: wiped out by for Staffin at the first corner, starting second,
12:05
Speaker 1: and I think the Staphan was third as well. So
12:07
Speaker 1: it's really nicely lined up in the sense that the
12:10
Speaker 1: next two tracks should be pretty evenly balanced between them.
12:14
Speaker 1: They're not really outlies in any way. They're pretty normal
12:17
Speaker 1: the weather. I know we just had a lot of
12:19
Speaker 1: rain in the desert, but I looked at the Kuta
12:20
Speaker 1: forecast no rain on that oda, and I think it's
12:23
Speaker 1: unlikely it'll be in Abu Dhabi as well. So they're
12:26
Speaker 1: two with the exception of this being a sprint weekend
12:28
Speaker 1: and therefore any one practice session. They're two pretty good
12:31
Speaker 1: baseline circuits where the competition should be close between these
12:35
Speaker 1: three drivers and the two teams with maybe now actually
12:38
Speaker 1: the little asterisk that we don't know how hard McLaren
12:42
Speaker 1: can push its car. They have they been pushing it
12:45
Speaker 1: too and slightly over the limit as you said, for
12:46
Speaker 1: the last couple of rounds to try and push out
12:49
Speaker 1: that for staff and threat. Now the threat is back
12:52
Speaker 1: very much in the frame and maybe they need to
12:53
Speaker 1: take these two rounds very cautiously.
12:56
Speaker 3: Well, and here's the interesting curve boar right for Qatar,
12:58
Speaker 3: and I'm sure you're going to get to this and
13:00
Speaker 3: you'll run sheet at some point. We've got mandatory twenty
13:03
Speaker 3: five lap stint links in the Grand Prix and Qatar
13:05
Speaker 3: on Sunday Monday morning for Australian time because of potential
13:08
Speaker 3: for tire damage. We've seen what's happened in Qatar in
13:10
Speaker 3: the last couple of years twenty twenty three. It was
13:13
Speaker 3: because the curbs were just chewing the tires to bits.
13:15
Speaker 3: And we know, I mean, I still look at Katar
13:17
Speaker 3: as being a motor GP track, of course, but the
13:19
Speaker 3: one thing that F one cars do around that circuit
13:21
Speaker 3: is they just absolutely slaughter the curves here because there's
13:25
Speaker 3: no real slow speed corners on this track, and so
13:27
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three there were tires being damaged. Twenty twenty
13:30
Speaker 3: four the curves have been changed, but there was still
13:33
Speaker 3: some incidents of tires being right on the edge. So
13:36
Speaker 3: we're talking mandatary twenty five lap stink links here. So
13:39
Speaker 3: if McLaren really are exposed with this potential plank wear
13:43
Speaker 3: issue when they are really pushing, this is going to
13:45
Speaker 3: be a different Grand Prix because it is going to
13:47
Speaker 3: be a Grand Prix of pushing because there's going to
13:49
Speaker 3: be a mandatory number of pit stops. The difference between
13:53
Speaker 3: this and the twenty twenty three one that we remember,
13:55
Speaker 3: of course, is that that race also doubled is the
13:57
Speaker 3: survival of the finish Dishit they remember in twenty twenty
13:59
Speaker 3: three because it was held in early October when it
14:01
Speaker 3: was absolutely searingly hot still, so you had mandatary stink lengths,
14:06
Speaker 3: everyone pushing like hell, and it was about thirty eight
14:08
Speaker 3: degrees at eight o'clock at night and everyone was just
14:10
Speaker 3: about passing out. So it's not going to be a
14:12
Speaker 3: race like that. But if you're saying, you know, we're
14:15
Speaker 3: saying now that McLaren seemed to be on the edge
14:17
Speaker 3: with this plank wear issue. This is a different sort
14:19
Speaker 3: of a Grand Prix a because we're almost certainly going
14:22
Speaker 3: to have no weather to be involved because it's Katar,
14:24
Speaker 3: but also because you know every team now will pretty
14:27
Speaker 3: much run the same sort of race because you've got
14:30
Speaker 3: these mandatory stink lengths. What does pushing harder for longer
14:33
Speaker 3: due to the McLaren relative to what Vastapham will do
14:37
Speaker 3: with Red Bull. And of course this all comes after
14:39
Speaker 3: the sprint on Saturday night where all of the points
14:42
Speaker 3: are going to be reset and we're going to know
14:44
Speaker 3: what's required for Cannoris with the championship on Sunday night.
14:48
Speaker 3: What's the order in terms of Piastri and Vstappam behind
14:52
Speaker 3: Norris and how does that play into things? And also
14:54
Speaker 3: what the task is for versappen at this point, whether
14:57
Speaker 3: it's a complete hail Mary or does something happen in
14:59
Speaker 3: the sprint that changes the way this Grand Prix plays out. So,
15:02
Speaker 3: for possibly the first time ever, the Catar Grand Prix
15:05
Speaker 3: is going to be rather exciting.
15:06
Speaker 1: I think yes, I think so, And just on that
15:08
Speaker 1: stint length thing, I think potentially the interesting element of
15:10
Speaker 1: that is that the one big strength McLaren should have
15:14
Speaker 1: had here, regardless of the balance of performance between the
15:16
Speaker 1: two cars with the speed profiles and that kind of
15:19
Speaker 1: thing maybe that favor is McLaren or not, is that
15:21
Speaker 1: they would have been banking on their tire life being
15:24
Speaker 1: an advantage here at a track where tire ware is
15:26
Speaker 1: so critical that we've got these men stint lengths. But
15:29
Speaker 1: also strategically, in a general sense, if everyone has to
15:32
Speaker 1: make two stops, then there's no reason potentially that Red
15:35
Speaker 1: Bull Racing can't go flat out because it knows there's
15:38
Speaker 1: not going to be a one stop that's going to
15:39
Speaker 1: beat its two stopwaars its ties, whereut everyone is going
15:42
Speaker 1: to have that neutralized a little bit, which also takes
15:45
Speaker 1: away potentially one of the strengths of the McLaren that
15:47
Speaker 1: may already be somewhat compromised by having to be a
15:50
Speaker 1: little bit more conservative and a Red Bull Racing car
15:52
Speaker 1: that despite the little lull we've seen from vistappen recently
15:56
Speaker 1: to me, I think in the broader picture of the
15:58
Speaker 1: second half of the season is much more so constantial
16:00
Speaker 1: than actually read well being found out a little bit.
16:02
Speaker 1: We shouldn't forget the race pace in Brazil was far
16:06
Speaker 1: and away better than any other car in the field.
16:09
Speaker 1: It took a little while to get there. But if
16:10
Speaker 1: they can get there in that one practice session in Kata,
16:13
Speaker 1: that's interesting. The sprint does complicate the mats a little bit.
16:16
Speaker 1: I'd love to say something as easy as if Norris
16:18
Speaker 1: wins the Grand Prix, he'll win the championship. That would
16:20
Speaker 1: be true if there were no sprint, but there is
16:22
Speaker 1: a sprint, so the mats is a little bit more complicated.
16:24
Speaker 1: A final point Matt I think is worth talking on
16:27
Speaker 1: about here is something that we sort of alluded to
16:30
Speaker 1: in recent episodes. It's come very quickly suddenly for Roscot Piastre,
16:33
Speaker 1: which is the threat of maybe not even finishing second
16:35
Speaker 1: in the championship. At finishing third. Max was Sapping is
16:37
Speaker 1: equal on points, He's certainly the driver between those two
16:40
Speaker 1: has the momentum, even if I think Piastre's speed has
16:43
Speaker 1: largely returned in the last two rounds. The points is
16:46
Speaker 1: what matters here, but being almost a points a full
16:50
Speaker 1: race win rather behind Blando Norris does raise the possibility
16:53
Speaker 1: that perhaps he's eliminated from title contention and the stapen
16:56
Speaker 1: isn't or that they go in even if it's twenty
16:58
Speaker 1: four points down ahead of Abu Dhabi and Max with
17:01
Speaker 1: Stappan's cloths. We can come up with hundreds of hypothetical situations,
17:05
Speaker 1: but that dreaded phrase team orders, I think is something
17:07
Speaker 1: that everyone, including McLaren will be grappling with. Here is
17:11
Speaker 1: this the time? Do you think is Maxwathstappen being equal
17:13
Speaker 1: with points on piastre a big enough threat for McLaren
17:17
Speaker 1: to contemplate. Actually, fairness has a new definition.
17:20
Speaker 3: Oh man, I'm going to say yes with an asterisk
17:24
Speaker 3: because of the sprint race. Now, if this sounds like
17:26
Speaker 3: I'm getting splitters from sitting on a fency, you'd be
17:28
Speaker 3: completely right. But because the mats will reset after Saturday
17:31
Speaker 3: night with the sprint anyway, then I think I'm just
17:35
Speaker 3: looking at it from a pure running a team perspective,
17:39
Speaker 3: and McLaren has said all year that they'd be prepared
17:41
Speaker 3: to sacrifice a driver's title to keep things fair between
17:44
Speaker 3: their two drivers, which I think is something that you
17:47
Speaker 3: can say when you're under absolutely no pressure, and it's
17:50
Speaker 3: not a case where the rubber meets the road. It
17:53
Speaker 3: would be from just a business perspective, would overstating this.
17:57
Speaker 2: Would it be completely.
17:59
Speaker 3: Insane to sacrifice a driver's title for the sense of
18:02
Speaker 3: harmony and unanimity between your team, just because you're trying
18:05
Speaker 3: to come up with something that ticks a box, if
18:07
Speaker 3: something has been discussed in a borderroom or whatever it
18:09
Speaker 3: might be. You cannot let the chance to win a
18:12
Speaker 3: World Driver's Championship go. And we've seen this already in
18:15
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven. Has been raised a few times.
18:18
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, the constructor's title
18:22
Speaker 3: is for the team and for the people within the team.
18:24
Speaker 2: This is my thought.
18:25
Speaker 3: And everyone remembers who wins the driver's title. We never
18:28
Speaker 3: look back and say, what about that year when so
18:30
Speaker 3: and so won the constructor's title. We'll look back and go, No,
18:33
Speaker 3: Fernando a lot So won the two thousand and five
18:35
Speaker 3: World Championship for Reto. We always think of the drivers here,
18:38
Speaker 3: and so we might be faced with this uncomfortable reality
18:42
Speaker 3: here that let's just say, let's say after the sprinting Qatar,
18:46
Speaker 3: where Vastapan has narrowed the gap and Piastre is mathematically
18:51
Speaker 3: but with no other real chance of actually winning the championship.
18:54
Speaker 3: At this point, do McLaren have to have that conversation,
18:58
Speaker 3: and are they really go to be willing to go
19:00
Speaker 3: through with this and potentially lose the World Championship by
19:04
Speaker 3: not deploying the other driver. And it's unfortunate for Australian
19:06
Speaker 3: fans that the other driver in this situation is Oscar Piastre.
19:10
Speaker 3: But let's just reverse the roles and imagine how it
19:12
Speaker 3: would play out. Then you can't give up a chance
19:15
Speaker 3: to win a driver's championship, can you.
19:16
Speaker 1: I think the complicating factor here isn't just all of
19:20
Speaker 1: the history McLaren set up, not only denying that they
19:23
Speaker 1: never have team orders, but the fact that they've at
19:25
Speaker 1: some points gone out of their way to try and
19:28
Speaker 1: equalize things. And I do wonder if things get closer
19:31
Speaker 1: for Abu Dhabi, how much of a talking point that
19:33
Speaker 1: Italian Grand Prix might become.
19:34
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was about to say yeah.
19:36
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine if three points, the three or the
19:38
Speaker 1: six point swing that Piastre lost was the difference between him,
19:42
Speaker 1: you know, leading the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix not having
19:44
Speaker 1: to give up a position to Norris to incite whatever
19:46
Speaker 1: million hypotheticals you can come up with. But I think
19:48
Speaker 1: the complicating factor for McLaren is that it's not as
19:51
Speaker 1: if you know, Norris and Piastre crashed out of Vegas
19:55
Speaker 1: because the conditions were hard on their own volition, and
19:57
Speaker 1: that's it. It's the fact that a team eraror has
20:00
Speaker 1: put them in this position a team mistake has hasn't
20:04
Speaker 1: actually cost Norris that much because he remains the title favorite,
20:09
Speaker 1: but has cost Piastre a lot because he no longer
20:11
Speaker 1: has that buffet of a Stappen and now puts him
20:15
Speaker 1: in a worse position should a team orders situation arise,
20:19
Speaker 1: because he has much less of a defense because He's
20:21
Speaker 1: cart got disqualified in Las Vegas because it wasn't set
20:24
Speaker 1: up properly or was set up to aggressively whatever. I
20:28
Speaker 1: think that's what makes it even harder for the team
20:31
Speaker 1: now to use team orders, because if you go back
20:33
Speaker 1: to that logic of Monza, a team mistake should be
20:36
Speaker 1: corrected on the track by a subsequent team order. You
20:39
Speaker 1: do that, do you deliberately lose the driver's title because
20:42
Speaker 1: you swant pi Astro in front of Norris in some
20:45
Speaker 1: sick situation to get some points back whatever. Obviously that's
20:49
Speaker 1: not going to happen, but that makes it even harder,
20:53
Speaker 1: and I think of your Piastre, I think I think
20:55
Speaker 1: it's either inconceivable that they give an order in Cuta
20:59
Speaker 1: or I think it's was being conceivable the other drivers
21:01
Speaker 1: were to listen to it. Piastro one who'd be receiving
21:03
Speaker 1: it because it's too early, because then you're going to
21:06
Speaker 1: have to go back relatively recently to twenty ten when
21:10
Speaker 1: obviously no one thought about would win the title, but
21:13
Speaker 1: he did at the last rates. So I think it's
21:15
Speaker 1: just so complicated, and every step of the way McLaren
21:18
Speaker 1: has somehow made it more complicated for itself. Yeah, the
21:21
Speaker 1: latest method being to get podcasts to squalified with two
21:24
Speaker 1: rounds to go.
21:25
Speaker 3: But this is going back to what we've said numerous
21:27
Speaker 3: times on this. They've taken a situation that actually wasn't
21:30
Speaker 3: super complicated, and maybe it way more complicated than it
21:34
Speaker 3: needed to be. I'm so glad you brought up the Monza,
21:38
Speaker 3: you know, flipping second and third around in that race
21:40
Speaker 3: late because of Norris's dodgy pit stop. If that becomes
21:43
Speaker 3: imagine if that becomes the margin that he wins the championship.
21:46
Speaker 2: By oh my god.
21:48
Speaker 3: But I think the best news out of what happened
21:50
Speaker 3: on the weekend. Is this something that you and I
21:52
Speaker 3: have dreaded since we looked at the calendar. The championship
21:55
Speaker 3: now cannot be won in the Catar Sprint, which might
21:59
Speaker 3: be the greatest use. I thought you were literally going
22:02
Speaker 3: to be sadder than that gigantic sad bear in the
22:05
Speaker 3: Qatar airport that you and I have talked about a
22:07
Speaker 3: million times if that happened, because it was one of
22:09
Speaker 3: those things that was going to happen at three o'clock
22:11
Speaker 3: on a Sunday boarding at Australia, that someone was going
22:13
Speaker 3: to win the world championship and a really really flat
22:15
Speaker 3: way to end what's been a pretty compelling season. So
22:18
Speaker 3: that's the good news. But the maths and the permutations
22:22
Speaker 3: that are going to be done on the fly on Sunday,
22:25
Speaker 3: particularly when you've got this slightly different race that's going
22:27
Speaker 3: to take place because of the mandatory stid links that
22:29
Speaker 3: we thought. But I still cannot get my head around
22:33
Speaker 3: the fact that McLaren would willingly sacrifice a driver's championship
22:38
Speaker 3: if it meant having to prioritize one of their drivers
22:40
Speaker 3: over the other. I just cannot see it. And if
22:43
Speaker 3: it does happen for that reason, then you really have
22:46
Speaker 3: to start questioning what are we actually doing here, because
22:48
Speaker 3: isn't isn't the whole story. We're trying to crowd a
22:53
Speaker 3: Driver's champion This is what we do. You do not
22:55
Speaker 3: give these things away for free. And if you have
22:58
Speaker 3: to do something that's unpalatable to ensure that one of
23:00
Speaker 3: your drivers wins the Driver's Championship, you have to do it.
23:04
Speaker 1: The thing you gotta love about this championship is that
23:06
Speaker 1: every time it's looked like it's going in one direction,
23:08
Speaker 1: there's been some wild and random twist in proceedings that
23:12
Speaker 1: amps up the pressure. It should be unfortunate for the
23:15
Speaker 1: time zone, but a fascinating Grand Prix weekend in Kata.
23:19
Speaker 1: Let's move now though to move of the week brought
23:21
Speaker 1: to you by Shannons. This was not the most exciting
23:25
Speaker 1: installment of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, I think it's
23:27
Speaker 1: fair to say, despite the talking points that arose in
23:30
Speaker 1: the aftermath. So I'm interested to know where you're going
23:33
Speaker 1: to take us.
23:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting, we've not spent one minute talking about
23:36
Speaker 3: the actual race, but there you go. That's probably what
23:39
Speaker 3: it deserves at this point. But I had a couple
23:41
Speaker 3: of candidates for this, but I'm going to go slightly
23:43
Speaker 3: left field here and I'm going to plump for Isaac Hadger.
23:45
Speaker 3: Oh very nice, finished sixth in sixth in Las Vegas
23:48
Speaker 3: after the double McLaren disqualification.
23:51
Speaker 2: Just very quietly.
23:52
Speaker 3: He's moved up to ninth in the Driver's Championship, ahead
23:54
Speaker 3: of Nico Hockerberg as a rookie. So Isaac Caja's ninth
23:57
Speaker 3: in the championship.
23:58
Speaker 2: So two things.
24:00
Speaker 3: One congratulations for that, world, don't Isaac Caja? And also
24:02
Speaker 3: commiserations in advance when he gets promoted to Repull Racing
24:05
Speaker 3: for twenty twenty six, which will of course begin the
24:08
Speaker 3: end of his Formula One career starting next March in Melbourne.
24:12
Speaker 3: So world, if forgetting into either top ten, and he's
24:14
Speaker 3: a bouquet of flowers for you because we know how
24:16
Speaker 3: this ended.
24:17
Speaker 1: Yes, we are watching the second last season of Isaac
24:20
Speaker 1: Kjar's career and it's.
24:21
Speaker 2: A good one. Yeah, yeah, well it's been good. Enjoy it.
24:25
Speaker 3: While at last Zanvilt was fine, let's everone move on.
24:27
Speaker 3: But speaking of moving on, your move of the week,
24:30
Speaker 3: I was thinking of talking about Max Fstappend being shall
24:34
Speaker 3: we say a little bit interesting with the rules of
24:37
Speaker 3: how far back you can be behind a car on
24:39
Speaker 3: the warm up black in Las Vegas. That was quite
24:41
Speaker 3: a good one. That was on my short list. But
24:42
Speaker 3: you might have something better than that.
24:44
Speaker 1: No, you me very well. I had true candidates. Well,
24:46
Speaker 1: one was Kimi Antonelli, rising twelve places from where he
24:49
Speaker 1: started with a technically no stop strategy. Yeah, tremendous defensive work. Essentially,
24:54
Speaker 1: I don't think you actually had to overtake too many cars.
24:57
Speaker 1: It was more about his strategy that was just perfectly executed.
25:01
Speaker 1: Was faster than most drivers on tires that were forty
25:04
Speaker 1: or eight laps or something like that old at the
25:06
Speaker 1: end of the race, including faster than his teammate, who yes,
25:09
Speaker 1: did have a small problem but managed his tires better.
25:12
Speaker 1: But I'm going to go for Max with Stafford because
25:14
Speaker 1: what I really like about the way he did the
25:16
Speaker 1: formation lap and the first turn, it's got to be said,
25:20
Speaker 1: is that it demonstrates what I think could be. Man,
25:24
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about this, and if it's all
25:26
Speaker 1: just wrapped up in Cato, it's gonna undwhelming. But what
25:28
Speaker 1: could be the deciding factor in whether or not he
25:31
Speaker 1: can get the championship to the line in Abu Dhabi
25:33
Speaker 1: with a realistic chance of winning it, which is that
25:36
Speaker 1: he just has this year's long I can't think of
25:40
Speaker 1: a better phraser than he has the wood on Norris,
25:42
Speaker 1: like he has this little psychological edge on Norris. I
25:45
Speaker 1: wrote a piece for the Fox Sports website on Tuesday.
25:48
Speaker 1: You can go and read it if you like. Do it,
25:50
Speaker 1: which is the Fox podcast. You should do it about
25:54
Speaker 1: all the various incidents in which Vastapan and Norris have
25:57
Speaker 1: clashed over there. It's really only been the last eighteen
25:59
Speaker 1: nearly two years. Beau's the only time Norris had a
26:01
Speaker 1: competitive car, and every time Verstappan has come out on top,
26:05
Speaker 1: either in a racing sense or he's pressed home this
26:08
Speaker 1: little psychological advantage that says I can kind of do
26:11
Speaker 1: what I want and you'll just have to put up
26:13
Speaker 1: with it. And it happened again even in Miami. The
26:15
Speaker 1: fact it took Norris longer to pass him than Piastre
26:18
Speaker 1: or with more excruciating attempts at overtaking him than because
26:23
Speaker 1: Verstapan just got his elbows out in a way that
26:25
Speaker 1: I don't think he does for every other driver. Because
26:28
Speaker 1: he knows Norris can't respond in as quick a way
26:32
Speaker 1: or as incisive a way. And I can't help but
26:36
Speaker 1: wonder whether this is just an extension of that, and
26:38
Speaker 1: how much that my player role in Kara, because it
26:40
Speaker 1: was this idea that he was hanging back on the
26:42
Speaker 1: formation like which I went and looked at the sporting regulations.
26:45
Speaker 1: There's no rule about how far back you're allowed to
26:47
Speaker 1: be at the start, so Norris has worked up about
26:49
Speaker 1: a rule that doesn't exist. You could see him if
26:51
Speaker 1: you look at I think it's even just in the
26:53
Speaker 1: world feed coverage. He spends a lot of that last
26:57
Speaker 1: section of track when he's meant to be doing his burnouts,
26:59
Speaker 1: looking in his mirrors at Forstapan and how far back
27:01
Speaker 1: he as well. Verstappen does his preparatory program, Lo and
27:04
Speaker 1: Behold doesn't have the grip off the line, loses in
27:08
Speaker 1: a pretty aggressive lunge across the track in an attempt
27:11
Speaker 1: to keep first place from Maxims. Appen lose it anyway,
27:13
Speaker 1: in fact, loses two places, and his race is decided
27:15
Speaker 1: by having to get past George Russell over the course
27:17
Speaker 1: of pretty much entire Grand Prix. I just think that
27:20
Speaker 1: that's potentially telling in this final chapter we might be
27:25
Speaker 1: able to get in this championship fight. So I think
27:27
Speaker 1: it's Maxis Sappin for doing what could in all honestly
27:30
Speaker 1: be not a move at all. It could have been
27:32
Speaker 1: not deliberate, he could have just been doing what he wanted.
27:34
Speaker 1: But it's still got under Landa Norris's skin.
27:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
27:37
Speaker 3: Look, there's an intimidation factor with Vestappen, we know that,
27:39
Speaker 3: but there's also a cunningness to the way he goes
27:43
Speaker 3: about things. He would know that by doing that that, yeah,
27:46
Speaker 3: there might be a car advantage for him, but he
27:48
Speaker 3: also knows that that's going to trigger Norris. Right, these
27:51
Speaker 3: guys know each other. He knows what will get under
27:53
Speaker 3: his skin in that point, and it might be something
27:56
Speaker 3: that you do for absolutely no game, but he's going
27:59
Speaker 3: to ask the question of you to see how you respond.
28:02
Speaker 3: And this, you know, we keep coming back.
28:03
Speaker 2: We talk maths, this and.
28:04
Speaker 3: Momentum that I cannot think of another driver in the
28:08
Speaker 3: field that I would have considered to be a legitimate
28:10
Speaker 3: world championship chance based on the numbers that Verstappen was behind.
28:15
Speaker 3: Other than Verstappen, there's no one else for me that
28:17
Speaker 3: you think would have the combination of ability, intimidation factor
28:21
Speaker 3: and just sheer race cunning that could actually make this
28:24
Speaker 3: a question that we're now asking. And that was of course,
28:27
Speaker 3: it was completely lost on the on or used world
28:30
Speaker 3: feed in inverted commas here commentary, because I was Timosy
28:32
Speaker 3: talking about something else. But it was really obvious from
28:34
Speaker 3: that overhead shot that you could see Norris come out
28:36
Speaker 3: of that last quarter in Las Vegas and where's everybody else? Oh,
28:40
Speaker 3: there are all three quarters of the way down the
28:42
Speaker 3: proceeding straight, and you could see.
28:44
Speaker 2: What was going on.
28:44
Speaker 3: I was and was not surprised at equal measure that
28:47
Speaker 3: it was not discussed on the broadcast, but you could
28:49
Speaker 3: see exactly what was going on. Max was setting up
28:52
Speaker 3: Norris for the I'm going to put some doubt in
28:54
Speaker 3: your mind for turn one, and the way Turn one
28:56
Speaker 3: on the start played out was absolutely the key to
28:58
Speaker 3: the victory.
28:59
Speaker 1: There's any one driver with anything to lose in these
29:01
Speaker 1: last two races, and it's Lando Norris. So that's asolutely
29:04
Speaker 1: be an interesting factor in that. Let's move along now
29:07
Speaker 1: though to some news during this week, and we'll give
29:09
Speaker 1: it a little bit of a contemporary lens as well.
29:12
Speaker 1: By talking about something that is still up for grabs
29:14
Speaker 1: other than the Driver's Championship, which is some positions and
29:17
Speaker 1: many billions of dollars. A little bit down further, the
29:19
Speaker 1: Constructors Championship, and I want to start with Aston Martin
29:22
Speaker 1: and the news reported by the BBC that it's poised
29:25
Speaker 1: to sack it's team principal and seeoh move him to
29:27
Speaker 1: other projects, to replace him with Christian Horner, a name
29:31
Speaker 1: you may be familiar with. He was sacked on earlier
29:33
Speaker 1: this year by Red Bull Racing. He could be the
29:35
Speaker 1: new well, let's go down to this year. It could
29:37
Speaker 1: be the new Andy Cowe, who was the new Mike Krack,
29:39
Speaker 1: who was the new Ot barzz Aff now fourteen principles
29:42
Speaker 1: potentially in as many seasons say. It sounds like coined
29:46
Speaker 1: to the BBC that there will be a new team
29:47
Speaker 1: principal next year. The question is whether or not it's Horner.
29:50
Speaker 1: He's on a short list. The other candidates are Andrea Seidel,
29:53
Speaker 1: who was the McLaren team principal before he left to
29:56
Speaker 1: head up the AUDI project and then was sacked, or
29:59
Speaker 1: Mattia but not h who were sacked by Ferrari. A
30:01
Speaker 1: couple of years ago and now heads up the ARTI project.
30:03
Speaker 1: So short list is fairly concentrated. But then, of course
30:06
Speaker 1: there's Christian Horner. It comes only what is it about
30:09
Speaker 1: three or four months since he was asked to leave
30:12
Speaker 1: Red Bull Racing, and only about a month since he
30:14
Speaker 1: was given pretty considerable payoff depending on exactly whose numbers
30:18
Speaker 1: you're using, Either way, it's pretty big could be reunited
30:21
Speaker 1: with Adrian Newey in only a matter of months at
30:25
Speaker 1: Aston Martin.
30:25
Speaker 3: There's a couple of elements to this story, like perhaps
30:28
Speaker 3: moving Andy Cowell more into a role responsible for the
30:31
Speaker 3: power unit. That makes complete sense with his Mercedes background
30:34
Speaker 3: and the fact that Aston Martin's gonna be runing Honda
30:36
Speaker 3: next year.
30:37
Speaker 2: That's going to take a lot.
30:38
Speaker 3: Of bedding in, so that makes sense from that point
30:40
Speaker 3: of view. I read a piece on the race dot
30:44
Speaker 3: com that was talking about some potential tension between Adrian
30:47
Speaker 3: Newey and Andy cow which may or may not be
30:49
Speaker 3: the case. But what's interesting to me is that there
30:52
Speaker 3: was supposedly a part of the reason that NUI left
30:55
Speaker 3: Red Bull in the first place was because of some
30:57
Speaker 3: tension with Christian Horner, and we obviously know that they
30:59
Speaker 3: were you know thickest these for many years, and then
31:02
Speaker 3: things went a little bit of rye with some emails
31:04
Speaker 3: that one or two of us may have got at
31:05
Speaker 3: some point, and Adrian knew he didn't quite enjoy that.
31:07
Speaker 3: But apparently according to something that I read, was say
31:11
Speaker 3: they went to an Oasis concert together and they and
31:14
Speaker 3: they patch things up. So I'm wondering it was it
31:16
Speaker 3: more sort of don't look back at anger or is
31:20
Speaker 3: it more? Is it more Adrian you he's sort of thinking,
31:23
Speaker 3: he's listening to the lyrics, He's going, oh, maybe you're
31:25
Speaker 3: going to be the one that saves me. And I'm
31:27
Speaker 3: sort of wondering if that being saved is from what
31:29
Speaker 3: Lawrence stroll interfering with everything if things don't go well,
31:32
Speaker 3: maybe there could be a bit of that. But you
31:34
Speaker 3: mentioned those names that are in the mix with hornerous
31:36
Speaker 3: potential replacements there. If you're framing a market on those
31:39
Speaker 3: three names that you brought up, you'd have Horner absolutely
31:41
Speaker 3: the top.
31:42
Speaker 2: Of the list.
31:43
Speaker 3: But there's so many aston Martin frustrates me enormously because
31:48
Speaker 3: there's so much potential there right that they're not lacking
31:51
Speaker 3: for resource and budget and ambition and all of the
31:53
Speaker 3: things that you need to be a successful Formula one
31:56
Speaker 3: team and are still not a successful Formula one team.
31:59
Speaker 3: And I know that you're now going to seguey to
32:01
Speaker 3: the constructor's points table because that's probably indication of a
32:05
Speaker 3: part of the table that Aston Martin just should not
32:07
Speaker 3: be in when you're looking at who they're competing against
32:10
Speaker 3: for the back half of the constructors Championship.
32:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's become the battle for sixth because Williams
32:16
Speaker 1: has all that locked out. Fift one hundred and twenty
32:18
Speaker 1: one points. That's thirty one points ahead of Racing Bulls. Now,
32:21
Speaker 1: that's still susceptible to a wild you know, lpnesque double
32:25
Speaker 1: podium from Brazil last year, but that's pretty rare and
32:27
Speaker 1: this is not gonna be any rain in the next
32:29
Speaker 1: two races, so I personally can't see that happening. So
32:31
Speaker 1: let's say Williams is fifth, but then behind Racing Bulls
32:34
Speaker 1: is halfs on seventy three points. That's seventeen points behind. Okay,
32:36
Speaker 1: that's getting a little bit large because Racing Bulls had
32:39
Speaker 1: a pretty good score thanks to Isaac Caadja, as you
32:41
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier at the weekend. But you know, with one
32:43
Speaker 1: sprint round coming up. It's not to say that can't
32:45
Speaker 1: be overhauled, but behind has and has jumped one place
32:49
Speaker 1: thanks to the points that got thanks to the disqualifications
32:52
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, Aston Martin which is one point behind,
32:55
Speaker 1: which did not score, and Sauber now only three point
33:00
Speaker 1: vents behind Aston Martin on sixty eight points. That's twenty
33:02
Speaker 1: two points behind Racing Bols. So they're still playing at
33:05
Speaker 1: home and then Alpines last. They're not going anywhere, So
33:08
Speaker 1: it's a battle for these three teams about who's going
33:10
Speaker 1: to finish ahead essentially Hals, Aston Martin and sour and
33:12
Speaker 1: maybe hass has a shot at Racing Bolds. Maybe, but
33:15
Speaker 1: there's a very real possibility in fact, if we look
33:17
Speaker 1: at the run of scores in recent rounds, that Aston
33:19
Speaker 1: Martin finishes nights last of all but Alpine, which is
33:23
Speaker 1: essentially last. Considering what Alpen has been doing this year.
33:26
Speaker 1: Souber's scored points at all four of the last Grand
33:29
Speaker 1: Prix okay, Aston Martin scored in three of the last four.
33:32
Speaker 1: But the car is so unpredictable in terms of where
33:36
Speaker 1: it's going to perform and where it's not compared to
33:38
Speaker 1: the hour. This hour has become a pretty reliable knocking
33:40
Speaker 1: on the top ten car in both qualifying and race conditions.
33:43
Speaker 1: But Aston Martin will turn up qualified relatively well, at
33:46
Speaker 1: least with Fernando Alonso. But then in the race, I know, okay,
33:50
Speaker 1: lancetrolls turned around the first corner. I think Alonso had
33:52
Speaker 1: a little bit of damage, but just never really looked
33:55
Speaker 1: likely to score points.
33:56
Speaker 3: No, And you know, so you go dig into those
33:58
Speaker 3: stats a little deeper. Half are scored two nine points
34:00
Speaker 3: in the past five rounds. That's actually genuinely pretty impressive.
34:03
Speaker 3: But the number that you sort of alluded to their
34:06
Speaker 3: Aston Martin are eighth in the Constructor's Championship. And you
34:09
Speaker 3: look at the two teams either side of them in
34:11
Speaker 3: terms of Hers and Saub. We know that Salera's about
34:14
Speaker 3: to become OUTI and they're ramping up with spend and
34:16
Speaker 3: what have you. But they just shouldn't be in the
34:18
Speaker 3: same conversation, as you know, F one's probably most independent
34:21
Speaker 3: team other than the power unit in the Ferrari ties
34:23
Speaker 3: with Hahs and then Sauvo, whose car is the color
34:26
Speaker 3: of Sauerva's car probably tells you a little bit about
34:28
Speaker 3: the sponsorship portfolio that team's had over the past couple
34:31
Speaker 3: of years, and this is where Aston Martin are. And
34:34
Speaker 3: you said that before that Aston Martin are a little
34:37
Speaker 3: bit unpredictable what they're going to do race by race.
34:39
Speaker 3: I'm actually going to disagree with you here because you
34:41
Speaker 3: always know where one of the Aston Martins is going
34:43
Speaker 3: to be. It's going to be absolutely nowhere, and this
34:46
Speaker 3: is something that you and I talked about before, so
34:49
Speaker 3: we may as well bring it up. My question to you,
34:52
Speaker 3: would any other team hire either of Aston Martin's drivers
34:56
Speaker 3: if they became available, and is that the only team
35:00
Speaker 3: on the Formula One grid you could say that of
35:02
Speaker 3: Because I'm looking at the teams behind astin the Constructor's Championship.
35:05
Speaker 3: Someone's always going to what Gabrielle borught a Letto because
35:07
Speaker 3: he's young and clearly very good. Pierre Gasly has had
35:10
Speaker 3: a pretty good season for an awful car, an awful team,
35:13
Speaker 3: and someone would hire him if he became available. You
35:15
Speaker 3: look at Aston Martin's drivers. Fernando Alonso is forty four
35:18
Speaker 3: years old and still very very fasty but he's still
35:21
Speaker 3: forty four years old. Lancetroll's nine years into his F
35:24
Speaker 3: one career. I think we kind of know what he
35:26
Speaker 3: is by now, and I've been too harsh. Is that
35:28
Speaker 3: the only team that if both those drivers came on
35:31
Speaker 3: the open market, everyone and just go, eh, no, we'll
35:33
Speaker 3: go with something else.
35:34
Speaker 1: Thinks I think it's a fair call. I think the
35:36
Speaker 1: problem with Fernando Alonso is just that you can't really
35:39
Speaker 1: build a team around him at this point. And I
35:41
Speaker 1: also think there's not really a team that needs, you know,
35:47
Speaker 1: a one to two year injection of experience to get going.
35:50
Speaker 1: You know, Salva maybe, but they kind of look Nicko
35:53
Speaker 1: Hogin is obviously not the same caliber as nick as
35:55
Speaker 1: a Fernando Alonso, but he's still kind of serving that
35:58
Speaker 1: experience role, well like experience still and he's a very
36:00
Speaker 1: capable driver. It's not as if he's just some old
36:02
Speaker 1: guy who never cut it in Formula One. He clearly
36:05
Speaker 1: can still do the business of helping that team grow.
36:08
Speaker 1: I don't think any other team on the grid really
36:10
Speaker 1: needs what he would offer. And then obviously all the
36:13
Speaker 1: front running teams are all built around as is increasing
36:16
Speaker 1: their phrase uson from one their franchise drivers who they're
36:19
Speaker 1: going to lead to success or whatever. In Ferrari's case
36:22
Speaker 1: constantly disappointed and well Lancetroald, Yes, he is spoken for
36:26
Speaker 1: the driver with the most Q one eliminations this season.
36:29
Speaker 1: If he's eliminated in Q one in Katar, he will
36:31
Speaker 1: have the most this season. Like he will win that
36:34
Speaker 1: record for this year he will. No one will be
36:36
Speaker 1: eliminated more often at the first stage of qualifying than him,
36:41
Speaker 1: which is okay. The car has not been great, obviously,
36:43
Speaker 1: but Fernando Alonso has been showing what it is capable of,
36:45
Speaker 1: at least on its good days. So I think that
36:47
Speaker 1: is a good call, and that to bring this background
36:50
Speaker 1: to where we started with this potential news that Christian
36:53
Speaker 1: Horner could become the team boss there even if he's not,
36:56
Speaker 1: and it's someone else, whoever's taking this job, who's going
37:01
Speaker 1: to be the one to tell this to Lawrence Stroll
37:04
Speaker 1: that we need a new driver lineup and that probably
37:07
Speaker 1: means both cars. Alonso, maybe you can keep it for
37:09
Speaker 1: another year or two, but even he's talking about, look,
37:12
Speaker 1: I've got one more year and then after that it's
37:13
Speaker 1: going to be ambassador of duties. Unless the Acid Martin
37:16
Speaker 1: next year he's a title winner, then maybe he'll stick
37:19
Speaker 1: her around. You know, realistically, within the next two years
37:22
Speaker 1: this we need a full driver lineup change at this team.
37:26
Speaker 1: Who's telling that to Lawrence Stroll? And the reason why
37:28
Speaker 1: I think the Christian Horner story is interesting more than
37:31
Speaker 1: what according to some report's favorite Andrea Seidel or even
37:36
Speaker 1: Masier Bonnotto, who I think that would also be strange,
37:38
Speaker 1: considering he seems quite bettered in an Audi But anyway,
37:40
Speaker 1: I guess you'd probably paid more at Aston Martin, I imagine,
37:43
Speaker 1: or maybe not, is that Christian Horner. The idea of
37:46
Speaker 1: him returning to Formula one has long been wrapped up
37:49
Speaker 1: in the idea that he returns as some car as
37:52
Speaker 1: a shareholder in a shareholding capacity. He doesn't want to
37:55
Speaker 1: just go and do exactly the same thing he did
37:56
Speaker 1: at Red Bull, because look at what happened at Red Bull.
37:58
Speaker 1: He got sacked with not a lot of and look
38:01
Speaker 1: at what's happening at Aston Martin to the team principles,
38:03
Speaker 1: they're sacked after around one year in the job, and
38:06
Speaker 1: there's this class with Adrian Neuwi. Even if they've made up,
38:09
Speaker 1: you know, there is this idea that Nui is a
38:11
Speaker 1: shareholder at Aston Martin and is the highest paid employee
38:14
Speaker 1: there at the moment. If Horner goes to Aston Martin,
38:17
Speaker 1: it would suggest very strongly to me that he's obviously
38:21
Speaker 1: being paid a lot of money, at least equal to NEWI,
38:23
Speaker 1: but presumably would have a shareholding, whether that's part of
38:27
Speaker 1: his deal. And I think if memory serves, it's about
38:29
Speaker 1: five percent trade you new or three percent something like that.
38:32
Speaker 1: You'd think Horner would need at least that, if not more,
38:35
Speaker 1: if he did what we were expecting him to do,
38:37
Speaker 1: which is bring some investors with him and actually take
38:39
Speaker 1: a portion of the team a quarter or something. If
38:43
Speaker 1: that's the case, surely you're not doing that without control
38:47
Speaker 1: over the driver lineup. And that would tell me. And
38:50
Speaker 1: we're getting several steps ahead of a story that may
38:52
Speaker 1: not come to fruition. We only know he's on the
38:53
Speaker 1: short list. That would suggest to me that Lawrence Stroll
38:56
Speaker 1: is accepted. Maybe his son's not going to be the
38:57
Speaker 1: world champion, maybe he's not going to exit for the one,
39:00
Speaker 1: but he's prepared to take his hands off the reins
39:03
Speaker 1: to some extent, which would be a real new chapter
39:06
Speaker 1: for this team.
39:07
Speaker 3: I had two thoughts as you were going through that.
39:09
Speaker 3: As I was nodding my head in grinning, which is
39:10
Speaker 3: absolutely useless in an audio podcast. I do realize, is
39:14
Speaker 3: this not a case potentially of Christian Horner's saying, oh,
39:18
Speaker 3: I could go to Aston Martin, try to get someone
39:20
Speaker 3: else to perhaps jump in and offer him a greater shareholder,
39:22
Speaker 3: get another team and perhaps you know, fast forwarding a
39:25
Speaker 3: situation where it could be involved with someone else. Here's
39:28
Speaker 3: the interesting thing for me. We talked about driver line
39:30
Speaker 3: up before. If Christian Horner is in at Aston Martin,
39:33
Speaker 3: does that rule Max for Stappin out of ever going
39:36
Speaker 3: to Aston Martin if he ever leaves Red Bull Because
39:38
Speaker 3: you think of the tension between the for staff and camp,
39:41
Speaker 3: and particularly Jos for Stappen and Christian Horner over at
39:43
Speaker 3: the last few months or months I guess of his
39:46
Speaker 3: time at Red Bull Racing. Would Christian Horner going in
39:49
Speaker 3: Aston Martin as a team principal and having a shareholder
39:52
Speaker 3: or whatever the case may be, does that automatically rule
39:55
Speaker 3: Max for Stappin out from it potentially ever going there
39:58
Speaker 3: if he was to leave Red Bull Racing or is
40:01
Speaker 3: Max Forstappen the sort of person that would be minded like, well,
40:04
Speaker 3: if you have the best car on the grid, Old
40:05
Speaker 3: go there. I don't care who runs the place. I
40:07
Speaker 3: just want to win more things, because that was always
40:10
Speaker 3: Aston's always been talked about as well if Max was
40:12
Speaker 3: ever to leave and drive for someone else. In F one,
40:14
Speaker 3: Aston was kind of the landing spot and it's Adrian
40:17
Speaker 3: Newey and they've got the resource and you can do
40:19
Speaker 3: that thing that the great champions do, where they go
40:21
Speaker 3: and win things with somebody else to prove how good
40:24
Speaker 3: they've been. Does Christian Horner's potential arrival at Aston Martin
40:29
Speaker 3: completely rule that out? And then what does that do
40:30
Speaker 3: for maxis Stapham, because where else would he.
40:32
Speaker 2: Want to go?
40:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there's always this store at Mercedes, but
40:35
Speaker 1: it's that thing where if George Russell is to be believed,
40:38
Speaker 1: and it's up to you with the not you want
40:39
Speaker 1: to believe him. But if Mercedes is good enough that
40:41
Speaker 1: it's winning races and in title contention next year, his
40:43
Speaker 1: contract won't allow them to drop him. And we can
40:46
Speaker 1: we assume they won't drop Antonelle as long as he's
40:48
Speaker 1: doing the business because he's the future, whereas if they're
40:50
Speaker 1: doing badly, he could leave. But Max isn't going to
40:52
Speaker 1: go there. Let me put you to you a slightly
40:54
Speaker 1: different proposition. Christian Huna goes to Aston Martin next year,
40:58
Speaker 1: Adrian new is designer Haliver cart it's winning races. It's
41:01
Speaker 1: going to be a title in the next couple of years.
41:03
Speaker 1: Christian Horner goes to Max and apparently they still retain
41:06
Speaker 1: just between them a reasonably good relationship. It goes to Max,
41:10
Speaker 1: you come, I'm going to pay you a lot of money.
41:12
Speaker 1: Lawrence Stell's got deep pockets. Papa Verstaffen, no go. He's
41:15
Speaker 1: not allowed within one hundred meters of the factory or
41:17
Speaker 1: the garage. Does Max take it?
41:20
Speaker 2: Does he?
41:20
Speaker 1: Because for all dense purposes, the beef seems to be
41:23
Speaker 1: between Christian Horner and yos for Staffen, not Max. I
41:27
Speaker 1: think that's an interesting question.
41:29
Speaker 3: So it becomes a question of business and ambition over family.
41:34
Speaker 3: Of course, you can always go back and patch up
41:35
Speaker 3: family once your career at start. So does he take it?
41:40
Speaker 3: I'm saying, with absolutely no research and consideration, Yes.
41:44
Speaker 1: I like this has been a heavily hypothetical episode of
41:48
Speaker 1: a bit tall. I've enjoyed it. We can't wrap it
41:52
Speaker 1: up though, before we visit the Crystal boll. Speaking of hypotheticals.
41:55
Speaker 1: The crystal ball broughts you by complete home filtration. Now,
41:58
Speaker 1: last week I do remember this because it was still
42:00
Speaker 1: on my running sheet when I opened it this morning.
42:02
Speaker 1: I said that Lando Norris had one more DNF in here.
42:05
Speaker 4: Oh do I get to claim the disqualification? You know what,
42:08
Speaker 4: I'm a kind judge with this. Yes, I'm a little
42:11
Speaker 4: concerned here because you said this came out of a
42:13
Speaker 4: dream that you were having, yes about what was going
42:16
Speaker 4: on for the rest of the season, so without you know,
42:18
Speaker 4: this is obviously a family friendly show here, So what
42:21
Speaker 4: have you been dreaming about in the past couple of nights?
42:24
Speaker 4: And can you project something for the rest of the week.
42:26
Speaker 4: Because I'm going to be a little bit greedy here.
42:27
Speaker 4: I've actually got two crystal balls.
42:29
Speaker 1: Oh go, I'm.
42:30
Speaker 2: Going to go through both of them afterwards. But given
42:32
Speaker 2: that you're now.
42:33
Speaker 3: Dreaming things into existence, where are you going?
42:35
Speaker 2: Where are you going this week?
42:37
Speaker 1: Sadly, no Formula one dreams this week, We'll not sound
42:40
Speaker 1: It's probably good to have a bit of a break,
42:41
Speaker 1: at least in my sleeping hours from Formula one. Look,
42:45
Speaker 1: let me go first, because mine's a pretty straightforward one.
42:47
Speaker 1: This is my instinct for this weekend is that we
42:50
Speaker 1: will not get a world champion this weekend, I think
42:53
Speaker 1: is a good outcome. I don't want the world Championship
42:55
Speaker 1: decided at four thirty five am on Monday, Australity and
43:00
Speaker 1: daylight time. I'd prefer it settled at this slightly better
43:04
Speaker 1: time of half past one in the morning to follow.
43:07
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's going to happen in Ka.
43:09
Speaker 1: I think we're going to go to Abu Dhabi with
43:10
Speaker 1: it live. I think it's going to be slightly close.
43:12
Speaker 1: It has to. I mean, if it goes to Abudhabi,
43:14
Speaker 1: like it is going to be slightly close as it is,
43:15
Speaker 1: because it can't be any more distant, and I think
43:18
Speaker 1: slightly closer is reasonable because we shouldn't forget in the
43:21
Speaker 1: current point system the difference between first and fourth, so
43:24
Speaker 1: just off the podiums thirteen points, which sounds like a lot,
43:27
Speaker 1: but that scenario is not that unrealistic considering how competitive
43:29
Speaker 1: is at the front. So I think we're going to
43:31
Speaker 1: Abu Dhabi. I think it's going to be just close
43:33
Speaker 1: enough that we're not going there calling it simply a
43:35
Speaker 1: coronation for Lando Norris. I won't predict beyond that, but
43:38
Speaker 1: I think we're not going to get to the title
43:41
Speaker 1: awarded this weekend.
43:42
Speaker 3: You haven't got a points number in mind, or are
43:43
Speaker 3: you going to wait until something appears to dream for you?
43:46
Speaker 1: I'll say less than fifteen, say less than fifteen points.
43:50
Speaker 1: I think the sprint there's a lot of potential on
43:51
Speaker 1: the spread. I'm not going to say who whens driver
43:53
Speaker 1: is less than fifteen points, but I think it's going
43:55
Speaker 1: to be under fifteen.
43:56
Speaker 3: All right, Well, given that I've decided, I'm going to
43:59
Speaker 3: give myself too christ ball stamps this week. So I've
44:01
Speaker 3: got the calculator out, I've done the mats. This is
44:04
Speaker 3: how katar is going to play out? Oh here we go, Yes,
44:07
Speaker 3: massive crystal ball.
44:08
Speaker 1: That's the kind of prediction I like.
44:11
Speaker 3: Norris will DNF in the Grand Prix and finish second
44:13
Speaker 3: in the sprint three hundred and ninety seven points. Maxista
44:18
Speaker 3: will win the Grand Prix and finished third in the
44:20
Speaker 3: sprint three hundred and ninety seven points. Oscar Piastre, I mean,
44:24
Speaker 3: let's be honest, he probably finishes fifth in both races
44:26
Speaker 3: at this point. But let's say for the sake of
44:28
Speaker 3: this exercise, Oscar Pastri wins the sprint and finishes second
44:31
Speaker 3: in the Grand Prix three hundred and ninety four points,
44:34
Speaker 3: and so you'll go into the final round. It'll be
44:36
Speaker 3: the marketing slogan will be something like three drivers, three points,
44:40
Speaker 3: two teams, one race and zero overtaking. Because so that's
44:45
Speaker 3: sort of now that I've crunched the others. So it's
44:49
Speaker 3: three points between three drivers. I'm here for I big.
44:51
Speaker 1: They'll take ninety percent of your slegon.
44:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe not the last bit. Would you like a
44:55
Speaker 3: more realistic crystal ball? I'm happy to call that realistic.
44:59
Speaker 3: But let's go all right, Well here's one for you.
45:03
Speaker 3: My crystal ball's predicting. I don't even know if that's
45:05
Speaker 3: this is particularly bold at this point, Kimmi Antonelli's going
45:08
Speaker 3: to overtake Lewis Hamilton for six to the driver's championship.
45:11
Speaker 2: That's a good one.
45:12
Speaker 3: He's fifteen points behind. He's outscored Hamilton forty eight to
45:17
Speaker 3: ten in the past three events in Mexico, Brazil and Vegas.
45:21
Speaker 2: And you can imagine.
45:22
Speaker 3: This story if Hamilton goes through his first Ferrari season
45:25
Speaker 3: without a single podium, The story of being beaten by
45:28
Speaker 3: the teenager that inherited your seat at Mercedes Oh boy,
45:32
Speaker 3: And just for context here, this is why this is realistic.
45:35
Speaker 3: Hamilton has scored double figure points in a race weekend
45:38
Speaker 3: once since Belgium in round thirteen, and that was because
45:41
Speaker 3: it was a sprint weekend in Austin. That's the only
45:44
Speaker 3: time he's cracked double figures since round thirteen. So given
45:48
Speaker 3: that Antonelli's fifteen points behind with what fifty eight to
45:51
Speaker 3: play over these final two rounds, given them momentum that
45:54
Speaker 3: he's on relative to Hamilton, who has absolutely none, I
45:56
Speaker 3: reckon this is absolutely in play and that may be
45:59
Speaker 3: the crystal ball I've ever come up with.
46:01
Speaker 1: That's huge, and I think you weren't wrong about being
46:04
Speaker 1: more realistic, although I still like your first one. But
46:07
Speaker 1: I think that fifteen points it feels almost inevitable at
46:11
Speaker 1: this stage because when's Ferrari. I mean you only have
46:13
Speaker 1: to listen to some of Charlotte Clipa, even Lewis Hamilton's
46:15
Speaker 1: comentry after that, but Charlotte Quere's commentary, who just seems
46:17
Speaker 1: to suggest there's no end in sight except for the
46:20
Speaker 1: sweet release of Abu Dhabi's checkered flag and big putting
46:24
Speaker 1: this car in the incinerator presumably, but yeah, it's hard
46:28
Speaker 1: to know because Hamilton's also that character. I know we've
46:31
Speaker 1: got to have up to sing, but we've talked about
46:32
Speaker 1: it before where his head goes down and then that
46:35
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to break that funk and his
46:37
Speaker 1: head is down there. He's clearly I was goin to
46:39
Speaker 1: say he's clearly looking forward to next year, but apparently
46:40
Speaker 1: he's not even looking forward to next year.
46:42
Speaker 2: But he must be.
46:44
Speaker 1: I can't see him summoning the motivation that Kimmy Antonelli
46:47
Speaker 1: has had to have two podiums in her own now.
46:51
Speaker 1: It's interestingly enough, but we'll find out more in only
46:54
Speaker 1: a few days time because we won't have to wait
46:56
Speaker 1: long to cut our Grand Prix this weekend and the
46:58
Speaker 1: season finale the following Nabudhabi, and that's all the time
47:01
Speaker 1: we have for pit Talk today. You can subscribe to
47:03
Speaker 1: Pittalk wherever you get your favorite podcasts, and you can
47:06
Speaker 1: leave us a rating and a review as well. This
47:09
Speaker 1: weekend is the Supercars Adelaide Grand Final. I thought that
47:12
Speaker 1: was baddast, with races at four fifty pm on Friday
47:15
Speaker 1: and three forty five PM on Saturday and Sunday. That's
47:18
Speaker 1: Eastern daylight time, followed by or around the Kata Grand
47:22
Speaker 1: Prix with the sprint at one am on Sunday and
47:25
Speaker 1: the race at three am on Monday. You can keep
47:29
Speaker 1: up to date with all the latest F one Supercars
47:31
Speaker 1: and Murder gpd US at foxsports dot com dot are
47:34
Speaker 1: you from Matt Clayton and me Michael Lomanato. Thanks very
47:37
Speaker 1: much for your company and we'll catch you next week